This term, I arranged specific Art project for Secondary students. The issue of Israel’s invasion to Gaza last December-January inspired me to arranged this project. The main idea actually is to open students’ mind about what happen in the other part of the world, while they are studying Art/Craft, the subject that I teach.

These projects are arranged for Secondary one. The first assignment is drawing, with theme: Peace for Gaza. To get a better picture of the theme, students are searching for news or pictures about the conflict from newspaper. Several pictures/posters about Israel vs Palestinians were also shown to them. Some students perform high quality of artwork because they know what happen in Gaza, so they can picture the situation quite well. They have good skill on art/drawing as well, and surely they show willingness and great effort to draw.

What is happening in Gaza

The second assignment is introduction to Silk-screen printing concept, and they make simple artwork based on that skill. The theme for this assignment is “Love for Gaza“.

First, they are given the phrase “Love for Gaza”, printed on a piece of paper as the guide, plus a sheet of paper to be cut out.

The second step, they have to put the printed paper over one thick paper. They have to trace the letters carefully using cutter to cut out the letters one by one. The available fonts for this work are: bauhaus93, stencil, and the students choose karisma stencil.

Cut out the paper carefully

The third step is to apply colour over the already cut paper. They are equipped with another sheet of thick paper. Put the cut paper over the other thick paper. Stick both pieces of paper to make it steady so it won’t move, to avoid mistakes on applying the colour. Apply poster colour over it using sponge, dab gently over the hole on the paper. Keep the thickness of the poster colour, do not make it too watery. It is important to be careful and neat to make a good piece of artwork.

Lift the cutout and coloured paper, and there it is. Final artwork is done.

Final artwork-Arinie

Some students shows seriousness on the process of doing this project, and they come up with the best result they can get. And I surely very proud of them.

Through this project, the students surely learn one skill on making an artwork. They know the basic knowledge or principles of silk-screen printing and can make a simple one. They also learn to be careful dealing with sharp equipment as cutter. They know that they should sharpen the knife all the time to give the best result. They learn to be patient, while they are waiting for any equipment to be used, they know that they have to takes turn. It is a test of patience for them as well, because they have to cut along the line of each letters very carefully, can’t miss any single corner to make a perfect cutout piece of paper. And surely they learn tive sympathy and love for people in Gaza. Their ‘struggle’ doing this work is nothing compare to the struggle of Palestinian. Palestinian children can not go to school peacefully, and even United Nation’s school was being bombarded as well. So my students also learn to value peace they have here, in their homeland.

I think the students really learn a lot through one assignment. i hope they can learn many many more things through a lot more of activities they are doing at school.